Note from the "If you aren't paying for it, you're the product" department: To use Amazon Underground apps and in-app items you are required to enable the "Collect App Usage Data" setting on your device. This allows you to download and use Amazon Underground apps, games and in-app items for free.

The Breakdown by Usage Type chart shows my Verizon family plan usage by line. The first and 4th lines are college students living away from home. Both have wifi access when they aren't in class. The first line, a Moto X running Android Kit Kat, normally has more usage than the 4th, an iPhone 5s. Why does the iPhone have almost 5 times the usage of an Android phone that likely has more usage?

Here's what I've learned so far:

iOS applications still use mobile data, even if connected to a wireless network, including:

iTunes and app updates

Facetime

Text messaging (by default)

You can turn off mobile data by application, but sometimes it comes back.

You can manually turn off mobile data, but the only way to automate that is by jailbreaking the phone.

Wireless access is deactivated when the phone sleeps, but iOS updates and other background activities will still happen using mobile data.

Poor reception will cause the phone to continuously connect (this happens on all smartphones).

The mail app will continuously attempt to send unsent mail from the Outbox.

To be fair, I had a similar problem with the Amazon store (not to be confused with the Amazon app store) on an Android phone. It synchronized 100MB of data, images and information on every product I viewed on the Amazon website), even though I didn't use the app on my phone. That isn't trivial (and I suspect it would happen on any phone with the Amazon store), but it pales in comparison with what I estimate to be the 5GB of phantom data usage on the iPhone.

Unfortunately, for now it seems the best option is to manually turn off mobile data unless, and only if, it's necessary. I'll update this as we learn more...

While working on a social media marketing plan for RavenNuke™ CMS (content management system), a review of three major CMS applications provided some interesting insights into different approaches for similar software, including Drupal, Joomla and Wordpress.

This compares the main navigation, about and getting involved pages, social media marketing (links, calls to social media action, etc.), use of major social media functions (Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus), and marketing support. Although the main navigation, about, and getting involved pages aren't specifically intended to support social media marketing, this content provides insight into the important messages these projects want to make on the project website - and in social media marketing efforts. The links to major social media functions enable quick reference to see how well the actual social media content support those efforts.

Cloud storage and synchronizing services pop up and disappear almost as quickly as Instagram's employees became mega millionaires. Who remembers Apple's MobileMe, Microsoft's Foldershare, MyBloop (unlimited storage), oosah, XDrive, or HP's Upline? More recently, Motorola acquired and is shutting down ZumoDrive, which even has mobile clients unlike its many predecessors.

Perennial cloud storage favorites DropBox and Box.net have a new competitor: Cubby from remote access powerhouse LogMeIn (currently in limited Beta testing by request). With 5GB free online storage, file versioning and built-in synchronization that lets you choose whether or not to use online storage, Cubby has most of the best features of DropBox, Windows Live Mesh / SkyDrive and Crashplan. What's the catch?

First, welcome to Android! One of the major benefits of this open operating system is flexibility - instead of one-size-fits all, you can choose to replace any app or function with something different and better - for you.

For links, see my Appbrain list of apps for new Androids. If you get an AppBrain account (and install the AppBrain App Market & Fast Web Installer), you can select all these apps and install from the list. And since this list changes as apps improve or new apps are released, you can follow the list.

I've tested over 500 apps - very few of which were games. Since games & social apps are more subjective, my list includes security , replacement of standard apps, widgets / productivity, and utilities. Most are free. 2 that aren't on the list because they aren't on the market: Amazon Appstore and GetJar (both offer free paid apps). It also doesn't include apps that require root access (there is another list for that).

Fast Company published an interesting article on what is calls "The Great Tech War of 2012" among Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google." The thought-provoking article describes various battlefields in a war to win our tech hearts and minds. My friend Raul's tweet that Apple didn't need dominant market share to win this war set off my "Media bias towards Apple" alarm. Does Fast Company (or the article author) have a vested interest in Apple? Other media players (e.g. iOSWorld, aka InfoWorld) frequently exhibit bias towards Apple, promoting it's products and services, while glossing over its failures, and treating Apple's competitors with a much harsher approach.

Since I hacked an Apple IIe in 1983, I've never been a big fan of the company. Yes, the article treats Apple with kids gloves and glowing references ("brilliant"), with a much more critical view of its competition, especially Google. Still, there is really only one battlefield where I had significant issues with the points presented: profitability.

It's not an iWatch (Apple isn't really THAT innovative). It's an i'mWATCH - one of the more stylish forms of the newest generation of the smartwatch. Unfortunately, the €299 to over €10K, Android-based smartwatch won't be available until early 2012. Like a kid on Christmas, if you can't wait, the developer's MetaWatch - with investment from Fossil - can be yours for just over $200. Similar to the i'mWATCH, the $100 to $200 inPulse smartwatch is available "soon."

MetaWatch

There are several approaches to today's smartwatches, including:

enhanced bluetooth device (aka "smartphone companions") that are really controlled by an app on your smartphone

"Take one down, pass it around," one less feed aggregator on the web. It seems several once-popular sites that combine feeds (aka feed aggregators, blenders, combiners, mergers, mixers, multiple feed merge) are no more. These sites combine 2 or more syndicated (RSS / ATOM) feeds into a single feed. This can be desired if you want a single source for multiple sites or have limited space for displaying syndicated content.

Several feed aggregators discontinued their free feed aggregation services, including RSS Mixer and FEEDblendr, for various reasons including RSS spam and cost of operations. Several others, including ChimpFeedr, Feed Informer, and Yahoo Pipes, continue to provide this free server. In addition to combining feeds, some of these hosted services provide the ability to filter stories based on keywords in addition to setting the number of items to display in the feed and the maximum number of items per source feed. Read More...

A quick survey of jQuery content sliders identified almost 30 options! Since the goal is to integrate this with the RavenNuke™ content management system primarily for news articles that may or may not have associated images, the ability to slide HTML content (as opposed to just images) knocked out almost one third. Having an open source license without requiring branding (sorry, SlideDeck), knocked out almost another third - leaving 11 real options.

Check out this feature comparison of 11 jQuery content sliders. Which do you prefer? Key factors include license, size, navigation capabilities, supported transitions, and other features. Although I'd like to consider how well the tool degrades (i.e. does it work without javascript), most do and it's quite a bit of work to verify. Similar issues exist with HTML compliance and support for browsers (few list compatibility). Some aren't true plugins and don't have a license beyond that of jQuery and other components like the commonly supported easing transitions plugin.

The most popular choice for this is Twitterfeed. But many accustomed to using the popular Twitterfeed service are looking for alternatives due to problems with Twitterfeed. Several alternatives (PingVine, Rss2twitter, and HelloTXTfeed) have come and gone, but there are viable, currently free alternatives: